Future Postharvest and Food最新文献

The recent increase in the world population, limited resources, and the need to store food for future use or transportation make it essential to improve shelf life. Food can be categorized into three types: highly perishable, semi-perishable, and highly stable. Among these, extending the shelf life of highly perishable foods is a major concern in the modern era. Various physiological, biochemical, and microbial challenges reduce shelf life during the postharvest period. Since ancient times, different strategies such as drying, heating, and freezing have been used to extend the shelf life of perishable goods. Additionally, modern techniques such as modified atmospheric packaging (MAP), intelligent packaging, active packaging, edible coatings, edible nanocoatings, and time-temperature indicators are increasingly popular among retailers and consumers. These modern technologies help extend shelf life while ensuring the safety and quality of food products. By adopting these strategies, Bangladesh can develop a resilient framework that ensures the safety of perishable foods, protects public health, and enhances the nation's food security.

In metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) or diabetes mechanistic studies, cellular experiments are frequently required. However, liver cancer cell lines are not as representative of the actual state of cellular metabolism as primary hepatocytes. In addition, primary hepatocytes are an essential resource in numerous scientific research fields, functioning as an ex vivo model for liver physiology. It is technically difficult to obtain significant yields of viable primary mouse hepatocytes, which restricts their application. Previous methods often required extended periods of time, sometimes exceeding 30 min, which was detrimental to the viability and yield of hepatocytes. Here, we offer an enhanced procedure that is based on the traditional two-step collagenase perfusion method. Perfusion I cleanses the liver, and Perfusion II, containing collagenase, dissociates the hepatocytes, which are then isolated from other cells and cultivated. This protocol was refined to enhance hepatocyte viability (over 80%) and yield (over 20,000,000 hepatocytes) while drastically reducing the process time (15 min).

The attractiveness of coffee depends on the post-harvest processing conditions to which the beans are subjected. These different treatments induce biochemical changes that are responsible for the development of more or less desirable flavors. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the influence of post-harvest coffee treatments on its antioxidant potential and bioactive compound profile. To this end, freshly harvested coffee beans (Coffea arabica L.) were ground and dried. The dried beans were divided into six batches: the first was ground directly, the second was soaked, the third was soaked and roasting, and the fourth was fermented. The fifth was fermented and then roasted, and finally the sixth was roasted. The samples obtained were used to assess the antioxidant potential and the profile of bioactive compounds using GC-MS. The analysis showed that the cooking treatments had a significant effect (p < 0.05) on the antioxidant potential and the content of bioactive compounds in the coffee beans. Phenolic and flavonoid contents varied from 12.82 (untreated) to 94.87 mg GAE/g extract and from 9.89 (raw) to 54.10 mg CE/g extract (fermentation + roasting), respectively. Fermentation + roasting improved these two parameters by 640.02% (phenolic compounds) and 447.02% (flavonoids). The antiradical potential was greater with fermentation-roasting, with an improvement of almost 43%. Fermentation-roasting identified the most bioactive compounds (10) and the phenolic class represented the majority of compounds in all samples. The different treatments improved the caffeine content, with fermentation yielding the highest percentage (85.69%). The application of fermentation + roasting to coffee as a post-harvest treatment would make it possible to supply the world market with a product of good organic quality.

The measurement of factors related to postharvest programmed cell death (PCD) in vegetables is crucial for understanding the physiological and metabolic pathways involved in vegetable ripening, aging, and stress responses. PCD is an actively regulated process orchestrated by the interaction of apoptosis, chloroplasts, mitochondria, and ROS, which collectively determines cellular fate through energy metabolism, oxidative signaling, and organellar dysfunction. This paper reviews effective techniques for assessing PCD-associated factors in vegetables and introduces emerging approaches such as single-cell sequencing, metabolomics, and proteomics, which are being used to investigate PCD mechanisms. The objective of this study is to provide an integrative theoretical and methodological reference for future research in postharvest vegetable biology and quality management.

Fruit leather is a nutritious chewy product made by drying fruit purees, offering an effective solution for reducing post-harvest losses in tropical fruits. This study aimed to develop and evaluate fruit leather using a blend of underutilized tropical fruits focusing on physicochemical, sensory, and microbiological properties A blend of papaya and pineapple was formulated with added natural antimicrobial agents—cinnamon and clove—to enhance shelf life and sensory attributes. The fruit leathers were prepared using tray drying at 60°C and assessed for moisture content (21.86%), titratable acidity (0.568%), and total soluble solids (15.1°Brix). Microbiological analysis confirmed the absence of harmful microorganisms, indicating product safety. Sensory evaluation indicated significantly higher acceptability for papaya–pineapple leather compared to jackfruit leather in terms of flavor (8.0), texture (8.2), and overall acceptability (8.3) on a 9-point hedonic scale. The addition of cinnamon and clove significantly inhibited microbial growth, statistically extending shelf life beyond 2 months without noticeable spoilage (p < 0.05). This study underscores the potential of fruit leather as a sustainable value-added product that leverages underutilized tropical fruits and natural preservatives to reduce food waste and support clean-label processing.

Ricebean (Vigna umbellata) is a versatile, nutritious crop cultivated in hilly regions, offering significant nutritional contents and serving as a vital livelihood source for the Himalayan population. It has ample amount of nutritional characteristics especially galctooligosaccharides (GOS) which possess prebiotic properties. Therefore, the study was aimed to extract the GOS from ricebean using microwave heating technique. The full factorial design (27 experiments) was applied to optimize the microwave heating process parameters (microwave power: 240–640 W, time: 3–9 min, water to flour ratio: 14:1 to 20:1 mL/g), and its linear and interaction effects of process conditions were evaluated on the GOS yield, total phenolic content (TPC), antioxidant activity (AC) and pH. The GOS, TPC, and AC were significantly (p < 0.05) influenced by all the process parameters. Microwave power had significant impact on GOS with higher yield 2.58 g/L. In optimization, the best process conditions were obtained at 3 min extraction time, 400 W power, and 14:1 mL/g water to flour ratio with higher desirability (0.77) for maximum GOS yield, TPC, and AC. Moreover, the microwave heating as an ecofriendly technique had the potential to be applied to underutilized pulses (ricebean).

An investigation was conducted to determine the optimal combination of packaging and chemical treatments to minimize postharvest losses where commercially mature fruits of the litchi variety “Shahi” were harvested from the orchard of the National Research Center for Litchi, Bihar and sequentially treated with various chemical combinations before packing in corrugated fiberboard (CFB) boxes or conventional wooden boxes. The packed fruits were transported by train from Bihar to IARI, New Delhi, within 24 h. Results showed that CFB boxes were significantly more effective in minimizing losses and retaining key nutritional parameters, including anthocyanin, reducing sugars, total sugars, and titratable acidity. Among the treatments, fruits treated with sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl, 0.2%) combined with potassium metabisulfite (KMS, 0.5%) showed the highest retention of anthocyanin (38.9 mg/100 g), TSS (24.2°Brix), phenolic content (318.4 μg GAE/g FW), and titratable acidity (0.7%). This treatment also resulted in the lowest physiological loss in weight (PLW, 2.86%), browning index (1.0), and no spoilage. These findings offer a practical solution for reducing spoilage and maintaining the nutritional quality of litchi fruits during transportation.

Ethiopian roasted corn bread (Dabo kolo) is a popular bakery product commonly consumed as a snack. However, enhancing its physico-chemical and antioxidant properties with ginger remains an area of ongoing research. In this study, Dabo kolo was prepared using wheat–ginger composite flour formulations, incorporating 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20% ginger based on their techno-functional properties. The study methodologies involved analyzing the impacts of ginger proportions on the techno-functional properties of flour and developing Dabo kolo's physicochemical and antioxidant properties. The results indicated that increasing the amount of ginger powder led to a decline in techno-functional properties, moisture content, carbohydrate levels, and sensory quality. In contrast, higher ginger content improved the product's physical characteristics, ash content, crude fat, crude fiber, energy value, total phenols, total flavonoids, and antioxidant inhibition potential. Based on the analysis of various parameters, Dabo kolo enriched with 10% ginger is recommended for scaling up and further research. The significance of the study lies in its relevance to ginger-producing farmers, small-scale processors, Dabo kolo producers, and consumers. Future studies should focus on the effects of different ginger genotypes and drying methods on its bio-functional properties.

With trade globalization, food fraud such as tampering, substituting, and falsifying, challenges human health and the management of food supply chain. As a food type that only processed at primary level, the authenticity of fruit supply information has become a guarantee for its edible safety. This review covers recent applications of IoT technologies in fresh fruit supply chain (FFSC) management, focusing on their potential to authenticate fruit information, predict shelf-life, and improve supply chain efficiency. Besides, the technical evaluation and application barrier analysis are also conducted. Results showed that IoT can comprehensively improve the service level of the FFSC. Concretely, wireless sensors can record the whole supply information of fruits on cultivation, picking, processing, and transportation. Moreover, fruit quality authentication and shelf-life prediction are carried out by mathematical coupling models in remote monitoring database. Such information can be furtherly distributed and encrypted through blockchain and other encryption techniques, resulting in secure, permanent, and immutable food authentication information, thereby greatly avoiding the food fraud behaviors. However, the application of these emerging technologies still faces challenges of technical obstacles, infrastructure construction, and model optimization for commercial use.

Consumers are increasingly demanding healthy and nutrient-rich food. Although conventional thermal processing techniques (pasteurization, sterilization, and blanching) ensure food safety and extend shelf life, they often negatively impact nutritional value and sensory quality, and they also consume high energy and generate wastewater. To overcome these limitations, research is exploring nonthermal processing technologies, among which cold plasma has emerged as a promising technology in the food industry. This review focuses on the use of cold plasma for microbial decontamination, seed germination and food packaging decontamination, addressing challenges like pesticide reduction and mycotoxin control. Cold plasma offers a waterless, nonthermal, broadly effective and chemical-free sanitizing process. Key insights include efficacy of cold plasma in eliminating contamination, even in situations where traditional antimicrobial treatments are less effective, and its potential as an eco-friendly and sustainable approach with minimal input requirements and minimal residues.